


The WASP Years - Sub.

by thunderbird_dragon



Series: The WASP Years [3]
Category: Thunderbirds, Thunderbirds are go!
Genre: Cold Weather, M/M, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 14:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8628397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunderbird_dragon/pseuds/thunderbird_dragon
Summary: Following a horrific sea battle, young Sub-Lieutenant Gordon Tracy, now almost 17, has been granted shore leave and travels overland by bus, only to get involved with other WASP members being thrown off the bus for no valid seat tickets - no big deal, except that the weather outside is so cold that it will kill them.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is part 4 (there is still no part 2) of the WASP Years series written last year to help my head get round all the stuff Gordon did before joining International Rescue. It's all headcannon, nothing else. It works for both TOS and TAG (though I put in my usual note that it's almost impossible for any of the brothers to have fitted in the original official cannon as TAG producers have made them all younger. I like them younger, I like the original - I love it all, I'd just like to understand how it all fits!)

**The WASP Years - Sub**.

The urgent use of the word ‘Sub’ made Gordon jump.

He had been allowing himself to drift close to sleep near the back of the second carriage of the bus, it was dark, passed midnight and he’d had a rough month.  Each time he closed his eyes he saw the explosions, missile hits to the decks and gun turrets of the WASP surface ship he had called home for 4 months.  The screams of men he knew, the terror on their faces, the ice cold of the water as they abandoned. The desperation of those he trusted to lead, the wait for recovery.

The battle of Cousanos Bay.  

It had been a month since, and sleep had been none existent.

He struggled to understand where he was, on a bus, going home on shore leave, surrounded by civilians.  The bus had stopped at a station, it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, not another building in sight and this one had only two lights on.  Someone was shouting the odds, two, three, no four voices.  Pleading, demands being made and again;

“Quick Enzo, get that Sub we saw get on the bus, get him up here, he’ll help!”

“You leave the assigned passengers alone!”  The driver’s voice!  He was angry, used to having to deal with awkward ‘hop ons’.  “You’ve no assigned seats, I’m sorry, you’ll have to vacate your seats for those who have!”

Enzo was making his way down through the bus.  Reaching Gordon, he tipped a hasty salute to the young Sub-Lieutenant.

“Sir, we’re being kicked off the bus, is there anything you can do to help?”  The WASP Rating had one eye covered in bandaging, his broken arm in the last stages of mending.  Gordon took in the injuries and just seemed to know.

“Cousanos Bay?” he asked.

“Sir, yes, we were on the Durranto.”

Gordon sucked in air, instantly visualising the Durrantos brave attempt to rescue them ending in its own annihilation, its crew thrown to the Antarctic seas along with his own.

“I’m from the Sprint.”  He needn’t say more, they clasped hands, it wasn’t a hand shake – more the need to still hold tight to another survivor.  He got out of his seat and led the Rating to the front.

Sub-Lieutenant Gordon Cooper Tracy was not yet seventeen, to some he might be just a kid but he’d seen and done things that would have terrified most civilian kids his age, but which were merely expected of him in WASP.  His rank had been earned by shear hard work and therefore, deserved respected, despite his age.  To the Rating, not much older than Gordon himself, he was an officer, a junior officer maybe, but still an officer nevertheless.

Gordon drew himself up to his not quite 5’6”, he was a strong kid, but had a few more inches to grow yet, though he looked bigger due to the massive boat coat he wore.

“What’s going on here?”  He spoke with the ‘almost confidence’ that was usual for a junior officer.

The driver looked at him, “Nothing to do with you, kid, you’ve got an assigned seat, go back and keep out of this!”

Gordon looked at the three young men standing their ground at the front of the bus, another of them sporting similar wounds from the battle.  The third looked hollow, and Gordon recognised that look too.

“We took ‘hop-on’ tickets for the spare seats back in Orlon, Sub.  The driver before this one said we’d be okay to go all the way, but his guy took over, back a ways, and now there’s people with assigned tickets at this station and so we’re being bumped off.”  Enzo explained his good hand spread wide, pleading for some help.  “We’ve paid all our warrant money for the tickets, we’ve no other way of getting home.”

The hollow man looked up, his eyes haunting Gordon, “Worse, after these people get on the bus, they are closing the station down for the weekend.  We’re going to be stranded!”

Gordon understood.   “Is there no way they can stay on the bus?”  He asked the driver.

“Look kid, there’s a war on, ain’t nothing I can do!”

Gordon rolled his eyes skyward. “There is _not_ a war on!” 

The World Authority was having such a problem with this, it was an insurrection, not a war.  People were just panicking.

“That’s not what we hear!”  The driver spat back, “There’s regulations and then there’s _regulations_ and in war time there’s these regulations, and _they,"_ he jabbed a stubby finger towards the Ratings, " don’t get to stay on my bus without a seat!”

“Okay! Okay, _so if it’s a war_ – then these guys are war heroes, look at the battle scars!  They were at Cousanos Bay!  They fought for _your_ freedom that day, they were left in that freezing water for two days!  Every man of them would have been lost but for their survival suits!”  Gordon surprised even himself, “ _They - stay - on - the - bus_!”

“Cousanos Bay!  What do you know about Cousanos Bay?”  The driver scoffed, “You’re just a kid!”

“Less of the kid, Driver, this here’s a Sub-Lieutenant, see!” The three Ratings drew themselves up, joined ranks threateningly.  He may only be a kid, but he’d been there, in the water, alongside them. They may not know him, but he was an officer, this driver would respect that fact if nothing else.

“Not helping lads!”  Gordon squeezed by them. 

The hollow man grasped at his hand. “Sub, tell him, please, tell him, I’ve got to get home, my wife’s having a baby, right now from what I understand, I got to get home! Please tell him.”

The driver could hear every word, Gordon looked straight at him, his own hands out wide in request.

“No!  Get them off my damned bus or I’m having them all arrested!”

“You’ve gotta be kidding!”

But the driver pulled up his comms and started the call for back up.

“Okay!  Okay!  They’ll get off the bus.” Gordon turned to the hollow man, “Here’s my assigned ticket, seat 102 in the second carriage, take it.”  The man hesitated, “Take it, go to your wife!”  It became an order, junior officer or not, an order was an order.  The man took it and thanks him, tears welling up.

Turning to the driver Gordon spat, “I hope you sleep well in your bed!” and to the other two Rating, he ordered just as firmly, “Fetch your kit, we’re walking!”

 

 

The bus drew away, leaving them in the dark, the station now closed and icy rain falling in stair rods.

They sheltered initially under the porch of the station as the Ratings introduced themselves as Enzo Berk with the eye bandage and sling, and Lizzard with stitches along his chin to his ear.

“Where’s your coat, Lizzard?”

“Lost along with all my kit, Sub.”

Gordon frowned, everyone’s kit had been lost, including his own.  Why had Lizzard not received another coat?  He was going to freeze out here! 

The man seemed to sense the confusion.  “They just didn’t have enough in the stores after the battle, everyone needed kit, I just got unlucky over the coats.”

Gordon rummaged through his bag, he had an additional hooded fleece, a good thick one, it wouldn’t keep the man dry but it was incredibly warm.  Similarly, Enzo pulled out a waterproof windcheater, again with a hood.  Combined, they would help and Lizzard wriggled into them gratefully.

Gordon was searching for a decent signal on his comms, “Looks like we’re 35 miles from a town ahead and 110 miles away behind, I guess we go forward.  Maybe we can cheek a lift out of my family somehow."  He called his father out on lunar duty.

The signal was weak but Jeff Tracy answered almost immediately, “Where the hell are you, son?  You should be half way to the West Coast!  I’ve arranged Scott to pick you up there in the morning!”

“Hmm bit of a long story Dad, shortened version, I’m here with two Ratings, also victims of the battle, and we’ve been bumped off the bus!”

Gordon couldn’t see it because the signal was fuzzy, but Jeff shook his head, thinking to himself that his son was like him, always rescuing the underdogs.  He smiled as he asked, half knowing the answer already.

“Son, you had an assigned ticket, why were you involved?”

“Seemed the right thing to do at the time!” Gordon discounted it and moved on, “Dad, is there any chance Scott could pick us up early?  Like now!  It’s freezing out here and a miserable long walk to civilisation.” He didn’t want to worry his dad about how bad it really was.

Jeff Tracy grimaced, fury began to burn in him.  How did they get bumped off the bus?  Didn’t people realise they were war heroes!  _Ah, but it wasn’t a war!_   He bit his lip, he had three sons involved in defending against the insurrection albeit that John was not front-line.  Jeff was in space, unable to do anything but worry about them.

“I’ll see what I can do, son, what you going to do now?”

“Start walking, we’ll freeze here!”  And there was no way Gordon was going to let them do that again within a months of the last time.

 

It turned out Enzo was a total comedian and kept them in stitches for a long, long way.

It was only as he began to weaken from the cold and his recent injuries that Gordon began to worry that they might be in trouble.  He estimated the temperature had dropped to something close to 18o below and now that the rain had done its worst and soaked them well, it was changing to snow, blowing almost horizontally across the plain.  It was only that it began to build up slightly on the far edge of the road that gave them a clear indication where the road was.

Enzo bent double, his hands on his knees.  “Sorry, sorry, I’ll just catch my breath!”

Lizzard looked at Gordon, “We’ll freeze if we stop, Sub!”  He was panicked.  Being bumped off that damned bus was tantamount to a death sentence in the worsening weather conditions, especially to men weakened by injury.  The bus driver knew that, he must have known it.

Gordon raked through every last piece of his survival training, snow hadn’t been high on the list of WASP priorities, they expected dangers to come more from the sea.

“We could pile our bags up, let the snow build up against them.  Rest a while behind, just a short time, it’ll be enough to get us going again.”  Gordon had offered it more as a suggestion but it was taken as a directive and done.  They huddled low behind their makeshift windbreak and shivered.

Comms signal was even lower during the storm, “Dad?”

“Yes son…”  Jeff stared at the screen, galvanised into standing at the sight of the weather engulfing them.  “That looks a little worse than a miserable long walk!”

“Yeah, sorry, I might have miscalculated a little there!”

More likely didn’t want to scare me, Jeff thought. “Okay, okay I can see, give me a minute and I’ll get someone out to you!”

Lizzard looked at Gordon, puzzled, “Who the hell are you that you can just call someone for a lift, right out here?  It's like – nowhere!”

Gordon smiled, “Well, my dad's an astronaut…”

“No way!”

He nodded, “Yeah well, he’s just finishing off there, but he’s got contacts everywhere, he’s got businesses too which means there’s people all over the world.”  A gust of mammoth proportions whipped across their bags, scooping every bit of stacked snow and leaving them exposed again.  They crouched lower, as Gordon added.  “He’s got this thing, a need to rescue people, people who have no other chance.”

“A bit like you then!”  Enzo offered through chattering teeth.

Gordon grinned, he guessed so.

“Gordon, do you think you can hang on half an hour?”  Jeff asked.

“Not so sure, Dad.”

And the comms were lost.  Damn!

“Okay guys, we’ve got a couple of choices now.  We vote.  One, we walk on and die of the cold or two, we stay here and we die of the cold!”  Enzo’s sense of humour had deteriorated beyond all hope and they pulled in closer to each other, now only one option was left to them.

Over the next 20 minutes, Gordon began to lose the feeling in his legs, totally confused as to why they were there.  Lizzard had begun to burrow under the others, pushing and pushing until he was curled up under their backs.  Enzo just became very quiet.

The light that found them came from a borrowed hyperjet, having been searching for them using heat sensors.  Col. Casey had been the closest person that Jeff could find and she had moved heaven and earth to get a vehicle fast enough to get to these lads.  She was terrified that she had arrived too late as she hauled each of them into the small borrowed jet and took off to the closest hospital, watching their vital signs more than she watch the skies.

 

 

It was his father’s face that greeted Gordon when he opened his eyes the next evening.  Jeff had left immediately after the comms were lost to get there.  

 “There you are, son, you gave us quite a scare!”  One big fatherly hand was over his son’s and the other gently stroking the boy’s hair back.

Gordon’s unconsciousness had been the calmest state he had been in for weeks.  He had not re-witnessed the sinking of his ship, not relived the terror, but instead, had simply rested completely.  Now, his eyes watched his father’s hand, bemused by the movement with the innocence of a child and for a long while he wasn’t aware of his responsibilities to the men he’d taken off the bus with him.

He slept again and on reawakening it came back to him, he asked.

“Are Enzo and Lizzard okay?”

His father smiled, “Yes, right here, see?”  He leaned back and Gordon could see them sleeping close by.  “I spoke with Lizzard earlier.”  And Jeff’s smile widened.  “He told me that I was really good at this rescuing thing!  He thought, maybe, I ought to take it up permanently!”

 


End file.
